The life cycle of a cicada goes through three stages: egg, nymph and adult.

The cicada, commonly known as the "zhiliao", is the collective name for insects of the family Cicadidae in the order Hemiptera. There are many species, widely distributed across temperate and tropical regions. The male has well-developed sound-producing organs on the sides of its abdomen, and in midsummer their calls rise and fall in waves, making them the most iconic singing insects of summer.

The life cycle of a cicada goes through three stages: egg, nymph and adult, making it a hemimetabolous insect. The female uses her ovipositor to lay eggs in the tissue of tender twigs; after the eggs hatch, the nymphs drop to the ground and burrow into the soil, growing slowly by piercing and sucking the sap from plant roots. The nymphal period varies greatly between species: the short ones emerge after just one or two years, while the long ones can take several years, and the periodical cicadas of North America even live underground for thirteen or seventeen years.

Mature nymphs usually emerge from the ground on summer nights, climb up tree trunks and shed their final layer of skin, emerging as winged adults; this process is what people commonly call the "golden cicada shedding its shell", and the empty shell left behind is the cicada slough used in traditional Chinese medicine. Adults generally live only a few weeks; the male cicada calls loudly to attract females, and once mating and egg-laying are complete, the cycle of a generation comes to an end.

In many regions, newly emerged nymphs are called "zhiliao hou" or "golden cicada" and are a popular traditional food. However, for fruit trees and forest trees, the egg-laying of female cicadas damages the branches, and the nymphs sucking at the roots also weakens the trees' vigor, so cicadas are both a sonic symbol of summer memories and sometimes a pest that needs to be controlled.